A bit of everything: Solid domestic waste is never one thing. Open any bin and you find many materials.
What is in household waste
- Solid domestic waste (SDW) is the solid waste thrown away by homes.
- With waste from shops, offices and schools it is called municipal solid waste.
- It is very mixed: paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastics and organic waste.
- Organic waste comes from the kitchen (peel, leftovers) and the garden (grass, leaves).
- It also holds packaging, clothing and construction debris from home repairs.
- Food and green waste is the biggest part worldwide: about 44%.
Real example: the World Bank found that in 2016 the world's waste was 44% food and green waste, 17% paper and cardboard and 12% plastic: 242 million tonnes of plastic in one year.
Remember it as: Paper, plastic, glass, metal, food and garden, plus packs, clothes and rubble.
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The contents split into two groups: what living things can break down and what they cannot. This decides what happens to each item in a landfill or the sea.
Biodegradable or not
- Biodegradable: broken down by living things such as bacteria and fungi.
- Biodegradable SDW: food, garden waste, paper, cardboard, wood, cotton.
- Non-biodegradable: plastics (PET bottles, polystyrene), glass, metals (aluminium, steel).
- Also non-biodegradable: e-waste, batteries, synthetic textiles (polyester, nylon), rubble.
- Paper and food are not non-biodegradable: they rot.
Biodegradable
- Food: peel, leftovers
- Garden: grass, leaves
- Paper and cardboard
- Cotton, wool, wood
Non-biodegradable
- Plastics: PET, polystyrene
- Glass
- Metals: aluminium, steel
- E-waste, batteries, polyester, rubble
Real example: two T-shirts in the same bin: a cotton one is made from a plant and rots; a polyester one is plastic and does not.
Two materials, one mark: Asked to state two non-biodegradable materials? Both must be right for the mark. Food, garden waste and paper score nothing: they rot.
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The parts people forget: Packaging, clothes and rubble from home repairs are also in the guide's list. They are made of several materials at once.
Packaging, clothing and debris
- Packaging is not one material: paper, plastic, glass, wood and metal.
- The EU made 186.5 kg of packaging waste per person in 2022.
- Clothing is cotton or wool (biodegradable) or polyester and nylon (plastic fibres).
- Construction debris from home repairs: bricks, tiles, plaster, old sinks.
- Mixed items, such as a paper cup lined with plastic, are hard to sort.
Real example: in 2022 the European Union threw away 83.4 million tonnes of packaging: 186.5 kg for every person, up 31.7 kg per person since 2012.
How this comes up: Paper 2, Section A: one mark for two materials in household waste that do not biodegrade.
A class sorted the contents of household bins (Figure 1).
State two non-biodegradable materials present in the solid domestic waste.
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